The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has a long history of
involvement in African affairs, so Sunday's reports that the 1962
arrest of Nelson Mandela came following a CIA tip-off don't come
as a huge surprise.

Most incidents came during the Cold War, when the US and the
Soviet Union battled for influence across the continent.
CIA covert operations are by their very nature hard to prove
definitively. But research into the agency's work, as well as
revelations by former CIA employees, has thrown up several cases
where the agency tried to influence events.

Here are four examples:

1) 1961 - Patrice Lumumba's assassination in Congo
Patrice Lumumba became the first prime minister of the newly-
independent Congo in 1960, but he lasted just a few months in the
job before he was overthrown and assassinated in January 1961.

In 2002, former colonial power Belgium admitted responsibility for
its role in the killing, however, the US has never explained its role
despite long-held suspicions.

US President Dwight D Eisenhower, concerned about communism,
was worried about Congo following a similar path to Cuba.
According to a source quoted in Death in the Congo , a book about
the assassination, President Eisenhower gave "an order for the
assassination of Lumumba. There was no discussion; the [National
Security Council] meeting simply moved on".

However, a CIA plan to lace Lumumba's toothpaste with poison was
never carried out, Lawrence Devlin, who was a station chief in
Congo at the time, told the BBC in 2000.

A survey of declassified US government documents from the era
notes that the CIA "initially focussed on removing Lumumba, not
only through assassination if necessary but also with an array of
non-lethal undertakings".
While there is no doubt the CIA wanted him dead, the survey does
not indicate direct US involvement in his eventual killing.

2) 1965 - Overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana
Ghana's first President Kwame Nkrumah was overthrown in a
military coup in 1966 while he was out of the country.
He later suspected that the US had a role in his downfall and in a
1978 book, former CIA intelligence officer John Stockwell backed
this theory up.

In In Search of Enemies he writes that an official sanction for the
coup does not appear in CIA documents, but he writes "the Accra
station was nevertheless encouraged by headquarters to maintain
contact with dissidents.

"It was given a generous budget, and maintained intimate contact
with the plotters as a coup was hatched."
He says that the CIA in Ghana got more involved and its operatives
were given "unofficial credit for the eventual coup".

A declassified US government document does show awareness of a
plot to overthrow the president, but does not indicate any official
backing.

Another declassified document written after the coup describes
Nkrumah's fall as a "fortuitous windfall. Nkrumah was doing more
to undermine our interests than any other black African".

3) 1970s - Opposition to the MPLA in Angola
In Angola three competing groups fought for control after
independence from Portugal in 1975, with the MPLA under
Agostinho Neto taking over the capital Luanda.

Mr Stockwell, chief of CIA's covert operations in Angola in 1975,
writes that Washington decided to oppose the MPLA, as it was seen
as closer to the Soviet Union, and support the FNLA and Unita
instead, even though all three had help from communist countries.
The CIA then helped secretly import weapons, including 30,000
rifles, through Kinshasa in neighbouring Zaire, now known as the
Democratic Republic of Congo, Mr Stockwell says in a video
documentary.

He adds that CIA officers also trained fighters for armed combat.
A declassified US government document detailing a discussion
between the head of the CIA, the secretary of state and others
indicates the support the CIA gave to the forces fighting the MPLA.
The US continued to support Unita through much of the civil war as
Cuba was backing the MPLA.

4) 1982 - Supporting Hissene Habre in Chad
Hissene Habre failed in his attempt to take power by force in Chad
in 1980.

But his efforts led President Goukouni Oueddei to call on help from
the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, whose soldiers successfully
beat back Habre's challenge and forced him into exile.
A proposed alliance between Libya and Chad began to unsettle the
US especially as Gaddafi began to be seen as a supporter of anti-
US activities.

In Foreign Policy magazine Michael Bronner writes that the CIA
director, with the secretary of state, "coalesced around the idea of
launching a covert war in partnership with Habre".
It is alleged that the US then backed Habre's overthrow of the
president in 1982 and then supported him throughout his brutal rule.


www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-36303327

Perhaps we add

Libya- Fall of Ghadaffi.

Nigeria-Boko haram and it's link with ISIS.

Mohammar Ghadaffi of Libya.

OK i see

Not surprised tho...

Jonathan's installation as President after Yar'Adua death

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A16pheGIFB4

[size=14pt]CIA confirms it helped capture Nelson Mandela [/size]